RISE’S COASTAL COMMUNITY RESILIENCE CHALLENGE

This Challenge seeks innovative technology-based approaches from anywhere in the world that address any of five resilience topics described below and can be demonstrated in the Hampton Roads region of Southeastern Virginia. Like other coastal areas, this region faces significant impacts from sea level rise and recurrent flooding.

Our Challenge encourages teams from all over the world to address the well-defined issues of a specific coastal community, Hampton Roads, but with a view to scaling and replicating the solution to other similar communities globally.

RISE has over US$1M in its Resilience Innovation Fund to support solutions that enhance the resilience of coastal communities. RISE will offer the opportunity, subject to due diligence review, to receive funds to qualifying teams. RISE provides applicants access to data and/or background information for each topic and will also provide access to regional Subject Matter Experts.

We are reaching out to the global community and are excited to welcome teams from the MIT Solve Global Challenge. The qualified teams participating in the 2018 MIT Solve Global Challenge will have the opportunity to compete for support from the RISE Resilience Innovation Fund. If you are interested in participating in the MIT Solve Global Challenge, please register here.

The Coastal Community Resilience Challenge is open to all eligible teams. If you are interested in participating in the Coastal Community Resilience Challenge outside of Solve, please register your interest here.

RISE CHALLENGE TOPICS
In order to aid applicants in their solutions, RISE has developed specific descriptions of problems and threats specific to each topic. More supporting explanations and data will be added to the table below over time. Each of these problems has an actual occurrence in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, U.S. RISE encourages participants to also consider the applicability of their solutions to other regions of the world. See the topics here.

RISE RESILIENCE INNOVATION FUND

In order foster and support innovation in resilience, RISE will utilize part of its federal CDBG-NDR funds to administer its Resilience Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund is in the process of establishing its evaluation procedures. It will begin accepting applications for funding in the summer of 2018. More details will become available nearer that time.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA:

The criteria below represent a sample of the eligibility criteria. In order to be eligible for funding from the RISE Resilience Innovation Fund, you must, at a minimum:

meet the definition of small business as defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration,

be a for profit or non-profit business that has a DUNS number, is registered on sam.gov, and is eligible to receive U.S. federal funds

demonstrate the solutions in the Hampton Roads region of Southeastern Virginia, U.S., and

RISE is willing to provide guidance and answer your questions on the above bullets. There will also be a due diligence review process. Final eligibility criteria will be posted to this website and provided to all interested applicants.

If you are interested in developing solutions to any of our sub-topics and would like more detailed information, contact RISE here.